The deeper Kane went, the worse the world became.
The hallways twisted into impossible angles.
Doors opened into nothing.
Shadows moved when he wasn't looking.
The Rot pulsed under his skin, whispering:
> "It's close.
Something ancient.
Something wrong."
Ahead, a wide chamber opened.
It looked like an abandoned subway platform — cracked concrete, broken benches, shattered glass.
In the middle stood a mirror.
Nine feet tall.
Framed in black bone.
And the surface wasn't glass.
It was alive.
It rippled like water.
Breathing.
Waiting.
---
Kane approached cautiously.
The Boneglass knife hummed, almost vibrating out of his grip.
The mirror shimmered.
And something stepped out.
Someone.
Kane froze.
It was his brother.
Matt.
Dead three years now — a car accident Kane still blamed himself for.
But Matt was here.
Alive.
Smiling sadly.
"Hey, little brother," Matt said, voice soft, familiar.
Kane's heart twisted.
He took a step forward before he caught himself.
The Boneglass knife flashed red — a warning.
---
Matt's smile widened — too wide.
His mouth split ear to ear.
His eyes melted into pools of black.
The thing lunged.
Kane barely dodged.
The Matt-thing's hands stretched into claws, slicing the air where Kane's throat had been.
He slashed back instinctively — the Boneglass knife cutting deep.
The creature howled.
It wasn't Matt's voice.
It was the sound of a thousand starving mouths, layered and raw.
The Rot inside Kane whispered urgently:
> "It's a Howler.
A Riftborn feeder.
It mimics memory.
And it never stops."
---
The mirror shimmered again.
More shapes stepped out.
His mother, crying.
His first love, bleeding from the eyes.
His best friend, missing his jaw, reaching for help.
They rushed him.
Kane fought.
The Boneglass knife screamed through flesh and shadow.
The things fell — but every time one died, two more emerged from the mirror.
It was endless.
Kane was drowning in his past.
And the Howler fed on it.
---
The Rot roared inside him.
> "You cannot kill the memory.
Kill the source.
Shatter the mirror!"
Kane glanced at the living glass.
It pulsed, thick and wet, birthing more horrors.
He shoved the knife into his belt, gathering the Rot in his hands.
Dark fire bled from his skin — his fingers blackened and cracked, but he forced it forward.
He ran.
Through the crowd of nightmares.
Through the voices begging, screaming, accusing.
He reached the mirror.
The Howler screeched behind him — a noise that flayed the inside of his mind.
Kane ignored it.
He drove the Rot-fire straight into the mirror's surface.
---
The world exploded.
A shockwave of black light ripped through the platform.
The Howler and all its copies disintegrated — screaming as they were dragged back into the Rift.
The mirror shattered into a million razor-sharp shards.
Silence fell.
Only Kane remained, kneeling on the cracked stone, gasping.
---
But something else happened too.
In the fragments of the broken mirror, Kane saw his reflection.
Or what was left of it.
His eyes glowed faintly.
Black veins traced his skin.
When he smiled, his teeth were too sharp.
He wasn't just carrying the Rot anymore.
He was becoming it.
Piece by piece.
---
A voice crackled through a hidden speaker overhead.
Not Halstram this time.
A new voice.
Cold. Female. Commanding.
> "Target Kane identified.
He has breached Protocol Nineteen.
Initiate retrieval.
Lethal force authorized."
Kane smiled grimly.
Good.
Let them come.
He was done running.
He stood, wiping blood from his mouth.
And when the Meridian assassins arrived...
They would find out exactly what kind of monster they had created.